Lech Walesa

Lech Walesa (29 September 1943-) was the Chairperson of Solidarity from 1980 to 1990 (preceding Marian Krzaklewski) and President of Poland from 1990 to 1995, succeeding Wojciech Jaruzelski and preceding Aleksander Kwasniewski.

Biography
Lech Walesa was born on 29 September 1943 in Popowo, General Government, Nazi Germany (present-day Poland). His father Boleslaw was a carpenter, and when the Nazis took over, he was sent to a concentration camp, and he was imprisoned at the time that Lech was born. In 1961 he graduated from primary and vocational school in Chalin and Lipno, and he worked as an electrician before joining the Polish Army during his years of national service. While working at a shipyard in Gdansk in 1968, he encouraged colleagues to boycott rallies that condemned the March Events student riots (which took place at the same time as the Prague Spring uprising in Czechoslovakia). He led several more riots against the Polish government, and in 1980 he founded the Solidarity movement. At the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, he led strikes against the government and strikes broke out across Poland. These strikes were not put down by the Soviet Union like the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the Prague Spring of 1968 were, and in August 1989 a coalition government of both former communists and nationalists took power, the first capitalist government in the Eastern Bloc. On 9 December 1990 he was elected as President of Poland, succeeding communist dictator Wojciech Jaruzelski. He supported Poland's entry into NATO and the European Union, but he lost popularity after using mudslinging (insulting opponents). In 1995 he lost the presidential elections with only 49% of the vote, and Aleksander Kwasniewski succeeded him as president. Today, he is still an activist for democracy.